‘And what was it?’ asked Saini.
‘It was the data recorded by Geiger counters across the country, regarding the level of radioactivity,’ replied Rathore. ‘The research team converted the data dump into a map and plotted the points for me. This was faxed to me the day that Chhedi and I reached Delhi. I wanted to share this information with my boss but her phone was obviously out of range in the basement of the vault.’
‘Could I see the map, please,’ asked Saini, weakly stretching out his hand. Radhika sighed. He had stood before the very gates of death and had barely returned alive, yet he was incapable of pulling himself away from the search.
Rathore saw Radhika’s reaction and attempted to dodge the request. ‘It is Latin and Greek to us non-technical types. Very little that can help us,’ he began. Saini smiled at him. ‘Humour me. Let me give it a shot,’ he requested.
Rathore shrugged his shoulders helplessly for Radhika’s benefit. He pulled out the fo,’ replied Sir Khan>message from his pocket and handed it to Saini who immediately got absorbed in studying it.
‘There’s a pattern here,’ said Saini to Rathore. ‘Could I borrow your pen, please?’ Rathore obliged by pulling out his and handing it over.
‘Could you pull that table over here?’ he asked Radhika, pointing to the wheeled dining trolley. Radhika pulled it closer to Saini quite reluctantly. ‘I still don’t understand why we are wasting time on this issue. Can’t you give it up, Ravi?’ she pleaded.
Saini smiled at her. ‘I promise that after I look at this map you shall not hear about the issue anymore. Deal?’
Saini placed the fax containing the map on the table before him and began labelling the locations. Within about ten minutes he had completed the process. He admired the map before him.
‘You obviously were not only good at history but also at geography in school,’ said Rathore with a grin. ‘What information does this add? Anything that can help us?’
‘It’s rather simple, really,’ replied Saini. ‘Look at these twenty-four locations closely. Of these twenty-four, eight are locations where nuclear power plants are located. A Geiger counter recording a high level of radiation is but natural in these eight locations. So let me cancel these from our map.’ Saini struck the eight names and locations off.
‘We have sixteen remaining locations,’ continued Saini. ‘This includes the Jodhpur region, where Kurkude had observed high radiation levels initially. In my opinion, we can cancel out Jodhpur because it is quite possibly the location of a naturally-occurring ancient nuclear reactor within the earth,’ said Saini.
‘Naturally-occurring nuclear reactors?’ asked Radhika.
‘Yes. Professor Kurkude had discussed that option with me,’ answered Saini. ‘It’s based on the findings of Dr Paul Kuroda.’
‘Then what?’ asked Rathore.
‘We can also eliminate Pokhran which was the test site used by the Indian government to carry out a controlled explosion,’ said Saini. ‘Radiation levels are bound to be high there, too. Now, we are left with just fourteen locations.’ Saini looked at the remaining locations once again.
‘See anything strange?’ asked Saini, showing the map to Radhika and Rathore. Both of them looked, and relooked, but they could not see anything of consequence.
‘What is of consequence,’ pointed out Saini, ‘is that with the exception of Agra and Mount Kailash, all remaining twelve locations are the sites of sacred Shiv lingams—in fact the twelve most sacred ones in India!’
Finally, the cremations and mourning ended. It was time to crown Yudhistira as the new king. But Yudhistira was in no mood to be coronated. ‘How can I wear a crown that has been won after killing my own family?’ he asked in tell us anything about the y Balaramai anguish. Just as I had advised Arjuna to fight on the battlefield, I now told Yudhistira, ‘You can certainly become a hermit, but wouldn’t that mean abandoning your people—the ones that really need your empathy after this massacre? You have the power to once again establish dharma in this kingdom; do not run away from your duty,’ I said. Yudhistira internalised the truth of what I was telling him and agreed to sit on the ancient Kuru throne of Hastinapur. As Brahmins recited prayers, the people of Hastinapur bowed before their new king and showered flower petals on him.
Radhika stared at the map before her once again. Saini had knocked out the city names and had replaced them with the names of the Shiv lingams… he was absolutely right! Excluding Agra and Mount Kailash, the remaining twelve locations were indeed the dwellings of the most sacred lingams of India.
‘Somnath has always been considered to be the most sacred among the twelve,’ said Saini.
‘What I cannot understand is why we have Agra and Mount Kailash also on the map,’ commented Radhika. Saini did not reply. He seemed to be momentarily lost in his own thoughts. He was racking his brains trying to remember exactly what Priya had said when she had held them at gunpoint inside the vault:
Thank you for cooperating. While I would have loved to stay and chat, it’s critical that I find the Syamantaka. Professor Ravi Mohan Saini, you have always occupied a special place in my heart. That’s why I could not allow my dear boy Taarak to do this on his own. Heaven forbid, we cannot treat you on par with the rest!
The Syamantaka! She believed that the Krishna Key was actually pointing them towards the Philosopher’s Stone!
‘We need to talk to Priya,’ said Saini.
‘What? She tried to kill you!’ exclaimed Radhika.
‘Be that as it may. She seems to have information that we don’t,’ replied Saini.
‘I doubt that you will ever be able to meet her again,’ said Radhika.
‘Why? Because she will have found the secret and run?’ asked Saini.
‘No, because by now she will be in the hands of Sunil Garg,’ said Radhika, a cat-like smile hovering on her lips.
‘What does he have to do with this?’ asked Rathore.
‘After the medical team had stabilised you, I told Garg that I was on to him. I told him that I knew that he had been sitting inside the vault all the time. I informed him that I had caught on to the fact that he had made the telephone call to you—not Mr Raval. I suggested to him that if he didn’t want his own murky role in the whole business to emerge, and ruin his illustrious career, it would be better that he took care of Priya and Taarak,’ said Radhika, measuring her words carefully. Rathore laughed while Saini was too dazed to speak. Radhika Singh had proved yet again why she had such a formidable reputation in the police department.
‘If we can’t ask Priya, we must reason this out for ourselves. The reason that Mount Kailash is on the map is precisely the same reason why Somnath is there,’ said Saini enigmatically.
‘Don’t talk in riddles, Ravi,’ said Radhika with a hint of irritation.
‘The Syamantaka is a transformative isotope,’ said Saini. ‘An element,’ replied Sir Khan5S sai that can transform a given element into another. It has been proved by modern science that transmutation happens best through nuclear processes. To that extent, it is evident that the Syamantaka could have been a nuclear isotope.’
‘How does that tell you anything about Mount Kailash being on the map? We went there ourselves! There was nothing besides a great big white sheet of ice,’ said Radhika.
‘I wouldn’t expect anything to be there. My hypothesis is that Mount Kailash is not a mountain but an alchemist’s pyramid!’ said Saini confidently.
‘What in heaven’s name is an alchemist’s pyramid?’ asked Rathore, longing to sink his teeth into good old-fashioned cases of theft, kidnapping and extortion, instead of esoteric ones like these.
After the coronation ceremony was over, I asked Yudhistira, along with his brothers, to go seek the blessings of Bhishma, who was still alive on his bed of arrows. Yudhistira sat by Bhishma’s side and learned the duties of kingship from the old man. The conversation between Yudhistira and Bhishma lasted for several days, in which Bhishma tried to answer all the questions that Yudhistira had. Eigh
t days after the full moon that had followed the Mahabharata war, Bhishma gave up his breath and passed on. The man who had renounced the throne and had taken the powerful oath of remaining celibate all his life so that his father could marry another woman, was an example that the Pandavas would need to live up to.
‘The goal of alchemy is transformation from lower forms to higher forms,’ began Saini. ‘While the most common way of thinking about alchemy is turning lead into gold or vice versa, alchemy is much more relevant in the spiritual sense—the final aim being to produce life from death. The pyramid is the ultimate symbol of alchemy. The Egyptian pharaohs were buried in pyramids precisely because they believed that the pyramid had the power to transform death into life.’
‘How exactly would a pyramid breathe life into death?’ asked Radhika.
‘For that we must understand the concept of Orgone,’ replied Saini.
‘Orgone? What is that?’ asked Radhika.
‘Alchemy is based on the theory that what we call God is merely a life force,’ said Saini. ‘Orgone is that life force. It has been called by various names in different cultures—aura, ether, chi, ki, mana, akaasa or praana—but they all mean exactly the same thing. The theory of Orgone was originally proposed by Wilhem Reich in the 1930s, but the concept of praana has existed in India from ancient Vedic times. Orgone was believed to be a massless substance very similar to luminiferous ether but correlated with living energy rather than inert matter. Reich believed that deficits in bodily Orgone were the cause of many diseases—including cancer. Putting aside fancy terminology, Orgone was merely the life or spirit that God puts into all creation. It is to be found in fresh food, fresh water, and fresh air—hence the ayurvedic insistence on eating fresh food.’
‘Why have we never heard of Orgone before? Why do doctors and medical professionals not talk about Orgone?’ asked Radhika, intrigued by Saini’s revelations.
‘Reich established the Orgone Institute to carry out research into the concept of life,’ replied Sir Khandeerme R force,’ responded Saini. ‘Unfortunately, his research discovered that Orgone tended to be deficient near telecom towers and chemical plants—among other things. Vested interests from these industries lobbied hard and soon the US Food & Drug Administration obtained a federal court order barring the institute’s work. Reich was jailed and all Orgone-related information was systematically destroyed. Orgone soon became a discredited, fringe science theory. Funnily enough, the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the US still treats Orgone as a model for some clinical procedures!’
‘How does the pyramid fit into this Orgone theory?’ asked Radhika.
‘The pyramid played the role of what was called the Orgone Accumulator—a giant machine that would suck life energy from air, water and earth and concentrate it at a single point,’ replied Saini.
‘So, the Egyptians were actually placing their pharaohs into an energy accumulator so that they would not only be preserved but also reborn with fresh energy?’ asked Radhika.
‘Precisely,’ answered Saini. ‘A pyramid has four faces that are exposed to the air, but it has a fifth side—the one it rests on. The ancients believed that the five sides could garner praana—or life energy—at the core of the pyramid. This was in conformity with the Vedic idea that the number five was at the centre of the world. A pyramid was thus a vital tool for the ancient alchemist.’
‘Is Orgone real?’ asked Rathore incredulously. ‘Is there any scientific proof that it exists?’
‘Most Orgone research has been driven underground because of the stigma attached to it by the
scientific research establishment. Much of the continuing experimentation is in the domain of work by enthusiasts and amateurs,ni. ‘For example, one amateur Canadian researcher from Vancouver built a full-sized copper pyramid in Abbotsford. He distributed several cuts of meat throughout the inside of his pyramid. According to his observations, the meat near the walls of the pyramid rotted, while a cut of meat in the centre of the pyramid remained entirely preserved even after months.’
‘Do you believe that?’ asked Radhika.
‘The question is not whether I believe,’ replied Saini. ‘The important deduction to be drawn from this conversation is that the ancients did believe it. Mount Kailash was possibly a giant life energy-absorption device and it was quite probably the very source of the material that came to be known as the Syamantaka stone in Krishna’s times. This material may possibly have had nuclear properties, thus allowing for a transmutative effect when it was placed inside the Somnath lingam.’
‘So you think that Mount Kailash was a giant man-made pyramid?’ asked Radhika.
‘It may not have been man-made,’ said Saini. ‘It could have been a mountain that was chiselled down to the perfection required by alchemists of that age. It is astonishing to find that the four faces of Mount Kailash are perfectly aligned with the four cardinal points of the compass. It is even more surprising that, to the west, it has a 108-degree concave face and that the two north faces also add up to 108 degrees. This cannot be pure coincidence.’
‘And the purpose of this pyramid was to collect praana—or Orgone—that could eventually be used as a,’ replied Sir Khan little sai transformative substance?’ asked Radhika.
‘Yes. Even the Bhagvatam Purana talks of how the world is made up of five elements that it calls the Panchabhuta. These are earth or prithvi, water or jal, fire or agni, air or vaayu, and ether or akasha. The Mount Kailash pyramid—which has five sides including the base—was a giant accumulator meant to trap life energy from each of these five elements,’ replied Saini.
‘So the radioactivity that has been recorded at Kailash and at Somnath is one and the same, because the origin is from the Syamantaka stone?’ asked Radhika.
‘In fact, the radioactivity at all the locations is due to the same reason,’ replied Saini. ‘It is very possible that after Ghazni’s invasion, the Jats and the Rajputs might have felt that it was wiser to keep moving the stone from one location to another. Temples would have been a natural choice. The problem, of course, was that those were iconoclastic times, and most temples would have been under threat of extinction.’
‘So where would one find the stone today?’ asked Rathore.
‘The only location that stands out as being the odd one out is Agra—it has no reason to be on the list,’ said Saini. ‘Yet, Agra is the very location that the British chose to deposit the doors of Ghazni’s tomb. I’m told that they still lie inside one of the storage rooms of the Agra Fort. I would say that my best hunch would be to go look in Agra.’
Shortly after Bhishma’s passing away, Abhimanyu’s widow—Uttari—went into labour. Everyone was excited—this was to be the last surviving member of the next generation. As the women looked on, Uttari’s waters broke and she delivered a baby boy. But soon there was panic because the child refused to cry. Hearing the women wail, I rushed to Uttari’s quarters and took the newborn in my arms. I gently whispered into the baby’s ears, ‘Don’t be afraid. This earth is not as evil as you think it is. There’s also goodness and happiness. Come, little one, come.’ Encouraged by my words, the infant opened his eyes and smiled. ‘Welcome to the world, Parikshit,’ I said, smiling.
Rathore had been despatched to Agra to visit the fort, and Saini had been allowed to leave the hospital two days later on the express condition that he would not overly exert himself and that he would use a crutch so as to avoid placing too much pressure on his left foot. Radhika had been by his side throughout his hospital stay, almost nursing him back to health.
That evening, Radhika and Saini went out for dinner to an Italian restaurant in Mehrauli. Ignoring the menu, they ordered a bottle of Chianti and followed it up with another bottle of Barolo. By the time those several glasses of wine had been poured and consumed, the two had also succeeded in pouring out their hearts to one another. When they contemplated ordering a Barbaresco, the establishment politely pointed out that it was way pa
st closing time.
‘After two days in hospital, I took a turn for the nurse,’ quipped Saini. There was a smile on his face but his eyes were absolutely serious. Saini settled the tab and got up from the table. Radhika helped Saini with his crutch as they walked back towards the parking lot enclosed within a circle.orerme R where Saini’s car lay parked. They held hands like teenagers and took comfort in the knowledge that they had each found a soulmate.
‘Your place or mine?’ asked Radhika lightly, as she settled into the driver’s seat. She was staying at the same hotel where Rathore had booked himself in, whereas Saini’s house was fifteen minutes away. ‘Mine,’ said Saini absolutely seriously, staring into her eyes.
‘And this time I promise that I will not search the premises or take away anything as evidence,’ she said with a straight face.
As they entered Saini’s home, they fell together on the couch, and Saini kissed Radhika on her lips for the first time. She held on to him tightly almost as though she wanted to consume him and, in turn, be consumed by him. Their lovemaking was gentle but passionate, almost like the graceful and unhurried movements of a slow waltz. After they had made love on the couch, they went upstairs to Saini’s bedroom and lay on the bed side by side, with Radhika’s head nestled against his chest. Saini felt a sensation of wetness on his chest and looked down to see Radhika crying. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly, ‘it’s just that it’s the first time that I’ve been with anyone since Hari died’.
In the morning, they went down to the kitchen only to find that the refrigerator was mostly empty. Fresh milk had been left by the milkman at the entrance though and they made tea. A packet of oatmeal biscuits came to the rescue and breakfast consisted of those dunked in tea. Radhika, who rarely drank tea, given her propensity for whole milk and almonds, kept losing her biscuits in her tea. She finally gave up. ‘Women do not know how much and for how long to put it in,’ teased Saini. ‘That’s why God assigned the job to men.’